Stop
by xfirefly9x
Summary: Supernatural/Harry Potter. A machine has caused apocalyptic events and Dean, Harry, Ron and Hermione have to stop it.


**Stop**

Fandom:Supernatural/Harry Potter

The moon was a smear of blood across the sky. The forest below was ablaze, flame licking at the edges, where the first of the fires had started. Demolished electrical equipment lay everywhere. 

The apocalypse had begun.

Or so Dean had thought when he'd gotten out of bed that morning. He'd soon discovered that it was in fact a machine that had done the damage – and was still on a rampage through the town. Possessed or spelled so that it could think for itself, it had reined destruction down on everything it possibly could.

Staring up at the sky as he tried to come up with a solution, Dean couldn't help but feel nostalgic. He had spent many a time staring up at the same stretch of blackness with Sam by his side and evil close behind. Those times with his brother were long ago, years, in fact, and he'd never missed them as much as he did now.

Sam. He could still see the look on his brothers' face: ghostly, pale and knowing, as _it_ happened. He could feel the rapid pumping in his heart as he stood there frozen, unable to blink let alone move to save him and it made him want to hit something. Hard.

He declined. That was a ship sailed long ago and it was not the time to dwell. He had new friends who'd become as close to him as his family ever was and right now, they were the ones needing saving. He wasn't going to fail them like he had Sam.

Nodding once at Hermione, he pulled himself from his chair and made his way over to where Harry and Ron were hovering over the machine that had started it all. Humming softly, it was ignoring their every attempt to reverse the effects.

A chain of calculative beeps sounded as Dean got closer and then, sensing he was no threat to it (which Dean found more than a little offensive), it returned to its quiet buzzing.

"How's it going?" Dean asked, eyes glued to the green numbers flashing on the monitor.

Harry glanced up and offered a grim smile. "Not too good. The numbers keep changing before we can make sense of them."

Dean scowled and shot the machine a dirty look. "Damn."

"Yeah. Hermione's trying to decode the few lines we've managed to get down in case that helps, but it's not likely," Ron put in. Tapping the side of the monitor, a sharp angry buzz was elicited and he jumped back. "He's not a happy machine, that's for sure!"

"He?" Dean raised his eyebrows.

Shrugging, Ron nodded at it. "Well, we can't be sure it's a 'he', but…"

"I'd think it'd be a 'she' if you don't mind my saying. It's complicated; keeps changing. You never know what it's going to do next," Dean interrupted. "Just my thinkin'."

Across the room Hermione glared, causing him to wince. "Sorry. I wasn't talking about…you," he excused himself quickly. He almost went on to tell her that she was like 'one of the guys', but just in time recalled the last time he'd done so (he'd ended up with a black eye and a tail) and he stopped himself.

"So," he said instead. "How's the coding going, Hermione?" Another glare and he fell silent.

"It's going nowhere. I've tried every spell I can think of and I've even gone as far as trying these muggle books, but they're very in-depth and I'd need a lot more time than we can afford to learn this stuff." She gestured at the current page of the book she had next to her and screwed up her nose in disgust.

"We don't need to learn it," Dean told her. "Only the information on how to stop this is important."

"I know, but to fully understand that I need to know the rest. It's like spells. You can say the words, but unless you know the background information – the materials you need, anything specific that you have to do and what's going to happen – it's really rather useless."

Giving a non-committal shrug, Dean smiled wanly at her. "Whatever you say, darling."

He turned to the others. "It looks like 'Plan A' is getting us nowhere, so I'm thinking it's time for 'Plan B'. Now, I know you don't approve as such, but it may be the only way."

"Violence, of course," Hermione muttered under her breath. "Boys."

Harry, Ron and Dean swapped amused looks.

"When do we set off?" Harry asked.

Dean pierced him with his eyes. "We don't. I do," he said simply. "I'm not letting you risk your lives unnecessarily."

"You're risking yours," Ron pointed out.

"Yes, but I do this all the time. It's my job."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "We do this all the time too, if you hadn't noticed."

"Uh…maybe we won't have to do the…violence thing," Ron muttered, staring at the machine in front of him.

Dean immediately moved to his side and studied the monitor. "What did you do?" he asked. "It looks like…is it off?" He raced to the window and peered out, narrowing his eyes at the sight before him. Harry and Hermione followed him.

"Did it work?" Ron blinked.

"Yeah…it looks like." Dean grinned and returned to Ron's side, patting him on the shoulder. "What did you do?" he asked.

Ron smiled sheepishly and gestured at the keyboard. "I typed in 'STOP'."

There was a moment of silence and then Dean banged his fist down on the table. "Why didn't I think of that?!"


End file.
